Hospital Technology Integration in South US States

The paper chronicles exploratory research in the domain of hospital electronic health records (EHR) adoption with a view to establishing a foundation for additional research. After reviewing the literature on technology integration within hospitals and health information exchange, the paper includes a review of the adoption and use of EHR by hospitals in southern US states to determine if anomalies exist by state or by year. The first major finding is that no differences existed between states. Next, it was discovered that there were statistically significant differences in hospital ERH adoption between four consecutive year pairs (2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14). This finding was mirrored in small hospital adoption; however, the finding was slightly different in rural hospitals where the difference was only significant in 2011/12 and 2012/13. These findings should be the catalyst for future research to explore the cause of these differences.